


It takes a boy to live but it takes a man to pretend he was there

by lorarawr



Category: Reign (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen, Henry not being a shit father, Hurt/Comfort, Paternal Feelings, S01 E03 kissed, s01 e04 Hearts and minds, there's no cursing in the story but there's cursing in the notes :)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 09:01:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11399358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lorarawr/pseuds/lorarawr
Summary: Kings do not sneak, but Henry might be sneaking. Sneaking down the corridor to go and see a dying son.Set between Kissed and Hearts and Minds in season 1, my pale attempt to show the world that Henry actually loved Bash.





	It takes a boy to live but it takes a man to pretend he was there

**Author's Note:**

> Written because worst example ever of show don't tell was constantly being told Bash was whom Henry loved the most and literally?? never?? seeing it??

 

Kings do not sneak, but he might be sneaking. He is treading lightly through the dark halls at night, his destination clear but his pace slow and hesitant. The late evening has made shadows on every wall as torches burn low, and darkness seeps into every corner of the keep.

Henry walks to his son. He walks to watch his son die. The most recent update from the hack whom his wife calls a savant is that it is unclear if Bash will survive the night.

Bash... His firstborn. The day he arrived, screaming and red faced, eyes open, he had been so small and yet so strong... He had taken Henry's finger with his whole hand and held on for what felt like an eternity. His eyes had locked on his and though the midwife told him the startling color would fade as it did with all babes, Bash’s had not. They had stayed, striking and appraising ever since day one. His son. Who is dying in the coldest part of the castle, slung onto a cot in Nostradamus' lair.

It has been only hours since Bash has returned, since his body had been carried through the castle, servant and noble alike gasping in horror and realization at whom was being dragged and what the trail of blood behind him might mean. Henry’s manservant had found him in the room beyond the great throne room, reading day old reports on the status of companys and musing ideally on the idiocies of young love. Felipe had broken into the room in a mad rush to give him the news, and he had left his papers and thoughts scattered in that room ever since.

He had walked a similar route then as now, though once with the urgency to receive news and information and not as now with the slow dread of confirming what he had already heard and seen. Then he had almost sprinted, weaving his way between servants and courtiers, his heart thumping in time with his thoughts. Surely, they all are mistaken. Surely is it not Bash that is hurt, surely it is just Bash that has brought another injured man home. But then he had arrived in the room at the hall, had seen the facts laid flat and trembling with pain. Those first moments in the crowded room with Bash, ever committed to his duty, still attempting to gasp out his report, they still tear at him, desperate to be a father but restrained to be a king.

Had he even reached out for him, he wonders, as he approached the door to the infirmary. Had Bash even known he was there or was his gasp out for father an instinct and a plea. His knuckles turn white on the door knob. Had his son thought he would die without seeing his father again?

And now, he opens the door in the night, all desperate energy to see him again with his own calmer eyes. What he looks at stills his very breath.

He is so very still. So very pale. His dark hair appears so much darker even in the hazy candlelight gloom, especially when in stark contrast to the pale and sweating face.

Bash was a rough and wild boy. Unencumbered by the titles and expectations of Catherine's children, he had run wild and free through castles and chateaus, predominantly untouchable and above reproach for the title of most favored had been bestowed early, even as Catherine produced heir after heir. He was constantly up a tree or in a lake, running through forests or dodging servants in the back hallways and corridors. How nervous Diane has been.

Bash rode horses fast, young, weaving between hay stacks and other obstacles, him and his mare one long instrument intertwined and one. Henry's best rider since the age of eight, used to gently mock his knights, constantly bested by the youngster.

But Bash had fallen a lot to get to that level. It had becoming a running joke between Henry and Bash, constant scraped elbows and bleeding knees, that every time Diane left for a Parisian retreat somehow Bash would end up bloody and bruised. It had always been jovial and light, a common exchange, as Henry had taken jaw in hand and examined the many well-earned wounds.

"Your mother will have my head for this," he now says to the dark and quiet room, his son’s faulty breathing the only echo. "She leaves for Paris and I...", He dare not say it. But he should say it. Say it and it won't happen. Say it and temp God's fate. Say it and realize words have no power over kings. Say it and realize he has never been as afraid as he had been several hours ago, storming in and seeing his son trembling and in pain.

"She leaves for Paris and I almost get you killed"

Bash makes no comment, offers no retort; his eyes do not glimmer with the mirth and understanding that father and most favored son share.  Bash is still and silent, and if not for the hand that now rests over Bash’s chest, Henry would doubt the boy even took breath.

“Oh Bash, my dear boy,” Henry exhales, raising his hand to hover over his son’s fevered brow, but hesitant to actually touch and feel the heat that courses through. He goes instead for the limp hand that lays by his side, clammy with blood still left under fingernails.

“I haven’t sent for your mother yet,” Henry states to the quiet, worrying his thumb over Bash’s knuckles. “She would worry, and we both know she is not a good worrier. She’ll be home in three days’ time, and by then, you’ll be back on your feet and her worry would all be for naught”

He glances away from Bash as he speaks, staring away into the darkness of the room. That is a bold mistruth. Diane had been sent for the minute Henry had left the room, earlier this day. He wouldn’t dare keep such a fact from her, she who he known for so long, she who has borne every other grief and sadness and glee and triumph. She who knows his heartbeat as his own.

She will come and bring her pagan hopes and secrets, who will do what the priest will not do (and curse that priest, who has already come to him asking if wants Last Rites performed). No, Diane is coming and she knows the stakes, knows how close they are to the end.

“Stay strong Bash,” he pleads, clutching the limp hand like the lifeline it is, “Stay alive.” 

 

**Author's Note:**

> LOOK. I don’t like...like Henry (that's a lie, mostly b/c Alan van Sprang is so good at playing this type of characters). BUT. The whole first season we were told that BASH was the most favored, the most adored, and like…we were never ever shown that?? So this was written because a) Reign is over and it never should have ended, and honestly Mary and Francis should have had 12 children and Bash and Kenna should have had 11 (because Bash is a good brother ya know). But I was so invested in this idea that Henry LOVED Bash, more even than Francis, and we know that it was reciprocal, but it was NEVER MOTHEAFUCAKIN shown, and I have many problems with that, so this is my small attempt to fix that. 
> 
> And there will be a second chapter to this, b/c I wrote the first chapter hella drunk on an airplane (happy fourth y’all), and we got to get to PATHOS and ETHOS and NOSTRADMOUNS v. HENRY in CHAPTA 2.


End file.
